


narcissus

by Deanon



Category: Novus Arx
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-26
Updated: 2015-03-26
Packaged: 2018-03-19 18:21:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3619698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deanon/pseuds/Deanon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>nearly every medicine was once a poison</p>
            </blockquote>





	narcissus

For months, Toivo pretended that nothing was happening.

 He took it all in stride, more or less, the flirting and the gossiping and the teasing. He ignored the fact that Aidan seemed to like it when Toivo was sarcastic with him, was able to banter back as good as he got. He ignored how much he’d _missed_ that kind of dynamic.

He carefully, so carefully, did not think about the last time he had it. It’s better than it was then, anyways. Aidan never lost his temper at Toivo.

Toivo avoided thinking about Aidan as much as possible.

He succeeded less than he’d have liked.

* * *

 

Evenings at quiet camps brought a peace to the group that they rarely got afforded. Toivo spent it with Aidan, comparing notes on plants and their healing properties and learning some of the tricks of fixing people from him.

“This one’s gonna burn like hellfire,” he said, closing the tin of a salve that he and Toivo had been working on, “but when you’ve got somebody looking more like a tenderized slab of meat than a person, there’s not much else to do for it.” He shoved the tin into Toivo’s hands. “Unless you’ve got me, obviously.”

Toivo snorted as he shoved the salve into his bag. They were all better at this now, at least a little; better at being prepared, better at knowing their own limits. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t say, “Does this mean you’re planning on slacking off on your job, then?”

Aidan shoved Toivo’s shoulder, grinning. “You don’t slack off on your job, and I won’t on mine,” and he didn’t mean it as a promise, but Toivo heard it as one.

* * *

 

“So kid,” Aidan said, coming up behind Toivo to nudge against his shoulder before settling against the railing next to him. He held out a cup of cider, which Toivo accepted with a confused smile. “Who’ve you got your eye on? I know it’s someone here. You’re jumpy as hell and you _shaved_.” He smiled at Toivo as though this was a perfectly normal question to ask someone. Maybe it _was_? Toivo’s experience with this was pretty limited.

“It’s, um,” Toivo said. He’d come out on the balcony for a moment of quiet while they still had time, and he hadn’t even noticed Aidan coming until he was already there. He felt tongue-tied. “Uh, why?”

“Just looking out for you,” Aidan said. He took a sip of the cider, and Toivo echoed his action without thinking. It was good, spicy and warming, like something he had maybe tasted a long time ago and forgotten about. “Thought maybe you were looking at that angel girl, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I think she’s spoken for.”

“I’m not interested in Honestly,” Toivo said, scandalized. It had never occurred to him. Or, well, okay, only twice, maybe. “It’s not – I’m not – I don’t have my eye on anyone.” He looked back out over the small courtyard that the balcony overlooks so that he didn’t have to watch Aidan turn and give him that _look_.

“That so,” Aidan said.

“Um,” Toivo said, shakily. “Yes?” He didn’t mean for it to come out as a question.

“Alright.” He took another sip of his cider and stopped looking at Toivo quite so hard, which was a relief and a disappointment all at once. “Can’t have you getting yourself involved with something like – well, what happened before, again.”

“Sorry,” Toivo said, hastily. For everything, he supposed. For getting involved in the first place. For his involvement messing everything up for the party.

A touch at his shoulder made Toivo turn towards Aidan again. “Don’t apologize,” Aidan said, and it sounded to uncharacteristically serious for him. “It wasn’t your fault.”

He looks at Aidan; Aidan with greying hair, Aidan who came out here to talk to him, Aidan who, he realized for the first time, might have been _worried_ about him, in his own, strange way.

“Yeah,” Toivo said, soft. “Sor – uh. Thanks.”

* * *

 

Battles were better with Aidan with them. This was part practical; he enjoyed the knowledge that having his arm slashed was now a relatively simple spell instead of days or weeks of complex healing that he has never been good at.

And part of it was being able to go in without as much fear, knowing that there was someone behind you that had your back.

But part of it was the way that Aidan would _smile_ after a battle as though he enjoyed it in a way that Toivo never had, beaming at him and saying “Hey, not bad, kid.”

He hated the way that his heart could still flip even when it was beating out of his chest.

He hated that he sometimes looked forward to battles, to seeing the genuine pride in Aidan’s eyes.

* * *

 

When he kissed Aidan, he’d expected to get pushed away. He’d expected, on some level, the flare of temper that had always accompanied initiating kisses with – well.

He had not expected him to freeze, to let Toivo kiss him, to say, gently, “Well, just this once,” and reach up to hold Toivo’s head in place and kiss him back.

He hadn’t expected that Aidan would kiss the way Aidan did everything, with a strange, understated protectiveness, as though he wanted to keep Toivo safe without ever realizing that he was doing it. He’d expected the hot flare of desperation in his stomach but hadn’t expected it to _settle_ after that in a way that it never had before, into a low glow that didn’t feel like it could burn him alive.

He wasn’t used to kissing someone without feeling as though he was risking being _destroyed_ by it.

* * *

 

Aidan slept with Toivo’s head pressed to his chest, a hand in his hair, as though afraid that Toivo was going to go somewhere in the night. He’d said “once” and Toivo wasn’t thinking about that, wasn’t considering whether he’d ever get to have this again.

Toivo kissed Aidan and it felt like desperation, but Aiden kissed Tovio and it had felt like _safety_. Like the kind of protection he had never really been afforded and the kind of trust he had not been able to find within himself for such a long time, not since –

It feels like being allowed to not think of how badly he had wanted that safety, how badly he had always craved it.

It tasted like a forgiveness he wasn’t allowed to ask for; it tasted like being able to forget.

 


End file.
